Description

Title: Thoughts of a Soldier – In Two World Wars and in Peace

Author: Riddell, John

Condition: Near Mint – Evidence of a price sticker removed from front cover. Part of the rear cover laminate has come away at the corner.

Edition: 1st Edition

Publication Date: 1999

ISBN: 0958522707

Cover: Soft Cover without Dust Jacket – 134 pages

Comments: There have been many books written about “The Great War” of 1914-1918, describing the day-to-day heroism and sufferings of Australian soldiers. This story goes deeper. It gives one soldier’s (Consett Carre Riddell) personal account as told through his war letter’s and diaries. Not only graphically describing the conflict, but capturing the human dimension of courage, loyalty and determination; as well as the impact of war on those who served, and those families that waited at home.

Consett Carre Riddell was not a professional soldier, but soldiering was his life. He served with distinction with the ANZACS in World War I fighting in most of the major engagements on the Western Front. He was wounded three times, twice Mentioned in Dispatches, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for gallantry at Messines. In 1940 he re-enlisted. Too old for active service he was appointed Officer Commanding an Engineer Training Depot where he taught young soldiers to perform similar tasks to those which he had performed 25 years earlier, those of a SAPPER (those responsible for building and repairing roads and bridges and laying and clearing mines). At war’s end he involved himself in Returned Soldiers League (RSL) affairs and was elected president of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (now Melbourne Water).

In 1920 General Monash said this about the Australian soldiers who had fought in “The Great War” – “Australia owes much to these men, in whose hands lay the national honour and prestige. They underwent untold privations and sacrifices, and won for us the battles that we planned. They have gained for themselves a place in history which none can challenge.”

This is the story of one of those soldiers – what he did and what he thought during a lifetime of service to his country, spanning conflicts in Gallipoli, Egypt, France, Belgium and England.